With the recent activities in projects such as Openmoko, Arduino and Open
Pandora, Copyleft Hardware is gaining more and more support and prominence.
Every month developers around the globe realize that the hurdles to start
hardware development are not as high as the industry wants us to believe. They
get their tools out, load a free CAD program and join one of the many "Open
Hardware" projects.

This trend was started with ever more accessible hardware. Locked hardware that
lets users install their own applications or completely customized operating
systems. This was a good start, but a few questions arise. Is locked hardware
running Free Software really all we want ever wanted? Do we trust the industry
to respect our privacy when they control the software in the chips that route
our communication? Is this really an opening up of the industry or just another
marketing spin to keep the customer base happy?

This talk will draw on the theory that Free Software on a locked device is only
half the way and will highlight possible paths to the future. It will look at the
alternative presented by the Copyleft Hardware movement, its difficulties as well
as the possibilities of collaborative development.

Drawing on examples from Shanzai Hardware from China, Arduino and the NanoNote the
talk with explore the idea of the Qi hardware project and highlight some of the
countless volunteers. It will propose a shift in ideology by which we no longer neglect
aspects of our freedom simply because they seem too difficult to reach, a shift which
appreaciates the changing environment in the Hardware arena instead of defining innovation away,
a shift which finally brings us back to the point where 100% free means absolute freedom and not
"everything after a certain point".

To get you into the mood, ponder on the following:

Is a monkey in a cage less trapped if you give him a banana? Or two?
Does a dog feel more free if you tear down the fence and instead put him on a
leash?

Well I have the schedule:
Saturday
18h-19h Iris: a new capability-based microkernel OS:
Bas Wijnen
Sunday
17h-17h30 Copyleft Hardware and the Ben Nanonote
Jon Phillips & Mirko Lindner
Attached is the rest of the schedule of the Embedded Dev Room.
I'm not very satisfied , but total of 1:45 hs of oficial Nanonote
presence in FOSDEM is not so bad.